Green, North West Europe, Terrain Part One

Hello There. Alongside the desert terrain, I have been making some terrain tiles for the above. These will be used for NW Europe, American Civil War and any other temperate climate.

The construction is the same as the desert terrain, up to the point that the surface finish is obtained. The tile already has a hardened coat of tile adhesive.

The desert terrain has a light spread of small stones, then a layer of sawdust.

The temperate terrain has a scatter of small stones (obtained by sieving sharp sand from a builders merchants), scattering that onto a layer of PVA watered down and spread over the whole board.

Then this is topped off with a covering of the sand from the same sharp sand.

When this has hardened and the PVA has set then the tile is painted 'English Brown' this is the same shade from the Vallejo range of paints. I have used artists paint and mixed a quantity of a close approximation to this colour, (Raw Umber and Yellow Ochre).

When the colour has dried I have dry brushed a layer of an an artists paint equivalent of 'Iraqui Sand' over the entire surface. When that is dry we are onto applying the flock.

I initially used Earth Blend fine turf. With hindsight, I will not bother with that step in the future as it is so similar to the painted surface that I do not think it is worth it.

The idea of obtaining a realistic covering is to keep the different shades of tine turf random and do not cover the whole tile in just one shade.

Leave gaps to show the painted surface through.

I used fine turf flock from the Woodland Scenics range. The colours I used are Burnt Grass, Green Grass and Medium Blend. Finally I used some 2mm Green static grass. Mine was in my stock and from 'OO scenics' which a model railway scenery company.

As seen above the glue used was watered down PVA which still had a very adhesive quality and covered well. It also extended the use of the PVA. 

This was the covering for the Earth Blend, which would be excessive coverage if I was using some of the other colours.

Use one colour at a time and let it dry. In this way you can conserve the different colours without mixing them all to one homogenous colour.

This is one completed. It now requires a covering of watered down PVA.

Once the last colour has dried then you can cover the whole surface with a thin layer of PVA and water. This helps the fine flock stay on your scenery. It will dry clear and harden the surface. I would normally add more clump foliage or bushes. 

This is a modular tile which the tutorial for was in Wargames, Soldiers, Strategy magazine. While it does not fit into the modular height of the other tiles, I have made some tiles to flank this which will bring it into use. Of course I have added some clump foliage. The brown circles on the top right are places for the trees which are not permanently fixed to the tile. This is so if there are knocked they fall over and so not snap off. 

In this case, I intend to place modular terrain such as roads, fences, stone walls and bocage on top, so making the surface more uneven would defeat the object of the terrain.

Battle of Newburn 1640 & Spanish Civil War Battle

Hello There! I recently attended a club night at the New Buckenham Historical Wargamers Club. It was a busy night with a good turn out. Two games were on and a third was being prepared for the following day.

The game I was involved in was these rules. I was a bit apprehensive at first as they were entirely card driven, (a situation that usually make me go cold), no dice throws and no measuring.

Here is a view of the overall table. The table is divided up into grid squares. Here all the terrain is 600mm x 600mm squares so this is easier to imagine. Four squares to each tile. Units occupy a square. In some situations more than one unit can occupy the same square. Units draw a card to decide if they can move. Initially a card is drawn to see if the unit, (or the brigade on the first move), and the size of the number on the card gives an idea of the chances of subsequent moves. If the next card is less than the previous card, then that brigade can no longer move until the next move.

The pack of cards are two sets of normal playing cards with the picture cards removed.

This was the battle for today. Part of the seconds Barons War and not readily known.

The Scots side was particularly well painted. There was also no need to put the units into smaller base sizes and so each unit was on a single base. This would probably prevent damage to the pikes.

At the same time a table was being prepared for the tournament game which would be held on the Saturday.

This included many bystanders who would also be present on the day.

Lastly a Spanish Civil War game in 20mm.

The first game went really well. While I cannot attest to the historical accuracy of the game, because I have little knowledge of the period, the game had a smooth flow and the rules were easy to pick up with guidance of Nick, who was familiar with the rules.

 

Snow Terrain Tiles For Sale

Hello There! After transferring scenery to the new log cabin I have this Retreat From Moscow terrain for sale. Price is £200 plus sending to destination. UK only. Depending on location I may even be able to deliver as we are always after an excuse to use the mobile home!

Sale does not include the figures, that were supplied by a wargaming friend.

There are three 600mm x 600mm square modular tiles which can be fitted together in a variety of ways.

These include a partly frozen river, a crossing point and a Russian izba. It was the subject of a features in Wargames Soldiers Strategy, Issues 91 and 92. 

It includes and open ended storage box which holds the three tiles and also a pot of Woodland Scenics snow.

The trees are separate to the scenery so if the are knocked they will simply tip over, not snap off.

If you require any further information I can be contacted through this blog.

Desert Roads Part Two

Hello There! I have completed the desert roads and have covered in the AK Dry Ground. It dried very quickly. The first part of the roads post is here.

With reference to the cracking problem, I have kept these items in a warm house and there has been no repetition of this. I put this down to the temperature in the cabin, overnight, where it can get down to three degrees Celsius.

They have retained their flexibility and are ready for gaming.

I now have some cobbled roads from the same supplier to do for the temperate terrain.

Desert Rock Outcrop, Part One

Hello There! While looking through a number of desert photographs I noticed the rocky features that played an important part in many of the clashes that took place in North Africa.

Especially in the Gazala battles these higher areas were seized by the Axis forces and caused the Commonwealth forces countless headaches and losses as they used penny packets of, sometimes, untrained and unacclimatized forces to recapture the high ground.

I wanted to avoid making some special to type terrain, as this may have been very large and caused me some real storage problems. I would also have been unable to change the size and shape of the high ground and could not change the high ground to include or exclude trenches or dug in positions.

I thought out a system of modular tiles which could allow replacement of the type of high ground or, if no high ground was needed I could use as a back ground.

This a basic plan to show what I envisage. The two central, plain squares are 600mm x 600mm flat desert tiles which can easily be replaced with times with trenches or positions in.

Each of the surrounding tiles are 600mm x 300mm and have a rock face along all or part of one side. Each of the four corners have a turn in the rock face and can match up with the tile next to it. They can also be swapped round as they are modular.

Three of the above tiles have slopes to aid access.

Here is a cross section of the tiles. The central higher tile on the left sits on a 2" thick sheet of polystyrene. The surrounding tiles have the timber edge extended to the same height as the raised central tile.

I have started to make some of these already.

One thing I have learnt, is how to cut the plaster rock face moulds. I did not want many repeated rock formations and I was limited to four Woodland Scenics moulds. After experimenting with layers of the smaller rock moulds, here. I decided to use the larger rock casts but cut them to the required height. At first I scored a line with a craft knife and continued during this until the cast snapped. Then I realised I could cut them with a general purpose saw and it was a lot faster.

I have started from one side and worked across to the other. I also try to over lap the castings to make them look more natural.

This close up shows that more clearly.

I deliberately model a curve into the face of the styrene so that the rock face does not look flat and unrealistic.

This tile includes one of those access slope I mentioned earlier.

The slope is also bordered by rock castings but cutting the larger rock casting down to the height that is required means that you now have double the shapes to build up you scenery.

 

Hougoumont Gardens

Hello here! I recently saw some previous work, I had done for my local wargames club. I may have posted it on this blog, but it was a very long time ago, so I thought I would post them on here.

The model of Hougoumont is the Hovels, resin, offering. It did not come with a walled garden but does have the walls. It always looked a bit sparse, when used by the club for its regular Waterloo refight, so I decided to build one.

At the same time I made a garden for the gardeners house next to it.

There are plenty of examples of what the garden looked like, on the internet. I had to separate a wargamers 'best guess' from contemporary painting made just after the battle. Source material, for even such a well read and studied battle, can be misleading.

Here is a close up of the garden. The cabbages are white roses from Hobbycraft scrape booking accessories and painted green and dry brushed a lighter green. The taller vegetation is coconut bristles from a broom head.

The raised beds are thin plywood faced with Slaters Scenics blockwork and then filled in with layers of plaster. Doing one thick layer takes a very long time to set so many thinner layers are better. The triangular plants are a mixture of coconut bristles again and sweet chestnut casings, soaked in glycerine, to preserve them, painted and model railway ballast glued to the top and painted different colours. 

The other part of the flower beads are Woodland Scenics clump foliage soaked in PVA mixed with water, so that they go hard.

The gravel path is, again, model railway ballast.

Desert Roads Part One

Hello There! With the weather taking a very cold turn, I have started to add to the blog again. I have done some work on the roads for the desert terrain.

I purchased the latex flexible roads from Early War Miniatures, here.

I have a scratch built collection of  rutted roads which I use for my bocage scenery, but this tarmac road was to be used for the desert. There were roads connecting passes and oasis in North Africa but the only tarmac road was the Via Balba. I wanted a smooth surface to the roads and they had to be pliable enough to conform to the uneven surface of the desert terrain I have already made.

Here is the smooth road on the left with a unpainted cobbled road on the right. This is the first time I have used latex roads so they were a bit of a learning curve for me.

I found that they roads tended to stick to each other very easily. I had to consistently peel them apart every time I put them to one side, I would suggest, in the future that if you purchase these, paint and seal them immediately, to stop this happening. This is not a complaint, just an observation as it is a side effect of using latex items.

The other thing I noticed is that if you do not store these flat, both before and after painting, that they can maintain a crease in them. I found this but after a couple of nights sandwiched between two pieces of plywood with a weight on top this was reduced. I presume that a longer period of time would remove any creases. 

With the tarmac roads I air brushed them in Vallejo Model Air 028 sand yellow. Them edged them in yellow ochre artist paint, the same colour as the desert scenery.

About here I noticed that after a few days the roads, if they were not left flat, the paint would start to crack. It was very cold at the time and I did have to put the heater on in the cabin. The roads were not in the direct path of the air heater so were not heated to a great degree.

I would paint soft plastic Airfix figures in a coat of PVA, many years ago, in an effort to stop the paint peeling off them. Here I had already painted the tarmac roads but have added a couple of layers of watered down PVA to both sides of them.

I have since covered the cobbled roads in a PVA and water mix as well.

 

After coating the roads in PVA, I wanted to 'rough' the surface up a bit. The desert environment can easily cover any surface so I decided to use AK dry ground. The road on the left has been stippled with dry ground while the one on the right has some applied at the top, to compare the difference.

 

This is as far as I  have progressed. I am going to monitor the cracking in the paint, to see if it gets worse. I am also considering a further layer of PVA. I will update you on further discoveries.

**POSTSCRIPT**

After inviting Paul, at Early War Miniatures, to view my blog, he very kindly got back to me promptly and explained that usually the roads come with an instruction leaflet, (which I did not receive in this case, however I did order a large job of of mixed roads combined with an order from a wargaming friend).

He explained that the roads are usually brush painted. This would give the roads a thicker coating of paint, as opposed to air brushing. Also it has been very cold in the log cabin recently, (one degree Celsius over night), and cold temperatures may also contribute to this cracking in the paint work.